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Karen Coyle | 1 Nov 2006 18:16

Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

My exchange with the FRBR blog made it clear to me that the
whatever-it-is that I am interested in creating or seeing created for
library users should have a name other than "catalog." I've done a blog
entry defining catalog, (http://kcoyle.blogspot.com) and beginning to
enumerate the functions that define this other "entity" that I see as
the NGC. I added those functions to the definitions page of the wiki
(http://futurlib.pbwiki.com) so we can easily edit them. Here they are,
just to get you stirred up over what I have gotten wrong (;-)):

    * The Next Generation "Entity" (not using the term catalog) is
      comprised of:
          o A list of items owned by the library. This list is at a
            macro level (e.g. serial titles but not the articles in the
            serial). Often that level is determined by the purchase
            unit, since this list interacts with the library's
            acquisitions function.
          o Serial issues received. This is usually found in a separate
            module called a serials check-in system (which replaced the
            old Kardex)
          o Licenced resources. These may be listed in the catalog, but
            they may either/also be found in a database used by an
            OpenURL resolver or in an ERM system (which is not
            accessible to users). In some cases, these are listed on a
            web site managed by the library.
          o Journal article indexes. These used to be hard-copy
            reference books. They are now often electronic databases.
            User interface to these varies.
          o Items available via ILL. This could be a union catalog of
            libraries in a borrowing unit. It also is a function that
            interacts with OCLC's ILL system. This latter usually isn't
(Continue reading)

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Hahn, Harvey | 1 Nov 2006 20:22
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Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

This post gave me an opportunity to discuss "two birds with one stone":

Karen Coyle wrote:
|My exchange with the FRBR blog ...

I've been following the FRBR thread here and thought I'd insert a bit
more information about FRBR.  As FRBR is generally understood, it
applies ONLY when there exists more than one instance/version of a
work--FRBR is a way of *relating* various instances/versions of a work.
(How the relationships are displayed depends upon the NG "Entity".)
Research by OCLC several years ago demonstrated that only about 18% of
OCLC's catalog would be enhanced by the use of FRBR--everything else was
an author's one and only work (which can't be strictly "FRBR-ized").
For the most part, academic libraries would likely achieve a more
beneficial use of FRBR than public libraries, due to their collecting
more versions/variations of some works.  Except perhaps in extremely
rare and specialized cases (e.g., a Shakespeare library), FRBR does not
and cannot apply to the whole catalog because most stuff ever produced
is the one and only work ever created by a given person or group.  So,
to "FRBR-ize" a catalog (thinking in terms of the WHOLE catalog rather
than 1 in 5 titles) is pretty much a non sequitur.  In terms of
implementation, most vendors who have attempted it (including OCLC, who
discussed the algorithms they developed) have taken an approach similar
to what catalogers term "uniform titles"--and anything to do with
cataloging often seems to be looked at askance these days.

A couple of comments from a different perspective...

|    * The Next Generation "Entity" (not using the term catalog) is
|      comprised of:
(Continue reading)

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Walter Lewis | 1 Nov 2006 21:01
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Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

Hahn, Harvey wrote:
> [snip]
> For the most part, academic libraries would likely achieve a more
> beneficial use of FRBR than public libraries, due to their collecting
> more versions/variations of some works.
Take any NY Times bestseller from 3-8 years ago.

Search for
    hardcover
    paperback
    large print edition
    translation for the multi-lingual part of the collection
    omnibus edition with author's other works in series
    VHS of the movie
    DVD of the movie
    and in rarer instances the CD-ROM game based on the movie
in your small to medium sized public library.  The more "popular" the
collection the bigger the FRBR problem set.  This is a general *not* an
academic problem.  Any of the Harry Potter titles is a perfectly good
exemplar of the broader set of issues that FRBR addresses (not to
mention the fact that they changed the title of the first book for the
American market).

Walter Lewis
Halton Hills
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Alexander Johannesen | 1 Nov 2006 23:54
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Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

On 11/2/06, Hahn, Harvey <hhahn <at> ahml.info> wrote:
> As FRBR is generally understood, it
> applies ONLY when there exists more than one instance/version of a
> work--FRBR is a way of *relating* various instances/versions of a work.
> (How the relationships are displayed depends upon the NG "Entity".)
> Research by OCLC several years ago demonstrated that only about 18% of
> OCLC's catalog would be enhanced by the use of FRBR--everything else was
> an author's one and only work (which can't be strictly "FRBR-ized").

I think this is a bit misleading; FRBR is a model that extends way
beyond the limitations of the single-book paradigm. In fact, there
even is strong models to support author [subjects] - collection item
[subjects], and so forth, which are fantastic coathangers to hang
*other* types of non-bibliographic info on. It's a model that was
designed around bibliographic records, but certainly not limited to
such. Even for authors of only one published book this adds lots of
value to our systems. We need to be careful as not to make business
decissions that kills our future direction and innovation.

What I find amazing in this whole shebang is that FRBR was finalised
in 1997. That's nine years ago! The library world has taken its time
to get to this point (sniffing at the FRBR spec, not even starting
toimplement it!), and if this is any indication of library time, we're
going to be extinct by the time we should have caught up with the rest
of the world. Could I humbly ask that we speed up a bit, and just
become a tad bit braver?

Alex
--
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
(Continue reading)

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Karen Coyle | 2 Nov 2006 00:56

Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

Hahn, Harvey wrote:
>
> |    * The Next Generation "Entity" (not using the term catalog) is
> |      comprised of:
> |          o A list of items owned by the library. This list is at a
> |            macro level (e.g. serial titles but not the articles in the
> |            serial). Often that level is determined by the purchase
> |            unit, since this list interacts with the library's
> |            acquisitions function.
>
> Where does this list of items come from?  And how much information does
> the list contain?
<snip>
I'd rather defer the questions of what does it contain and QC, etc. for
the moment. For the sake of our definition, we need to determine if we
think that the NGE does contain a list of items owned by the library, in
the traditional sense of a catalog. I can see two possibilities: 1) this
function is relegated to a library inventory module that interacts with
acquisitions, circulation, and ILL. Discovery happens through other
functions and users need not concern themselves with what any
particularly library holds 2) the library holdings list is part of the
NGE, and we'll go into more detail later about how it interacts with
other parts of the system.
>
> |          o Licenced resources. These may be listed in the catalog, but
> |            they may either/also be found in a database used by an
> |            OpenURL resolver or in an ERM system (which is not
> |            accessible to users). In some cases, these are listed on a
> |            web site managed by the library.
>
(Continue reading)

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Hahn, Harvey | 2 Nov 2006 01:18
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Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

Alexander Johannesen wrote:
|On 11/2/06, Hahn, Harvey <hhahn <at> ahml.info> wrote:
|> As FRBR is generally understood, it
|> applies ONLY when there exists more than one instance/version of a
|> work--FRBR is a way of *relating* various instances/versions
|of a work.
|> (How the relationships are displayed depends upon the NG "Entity".)
|> Research by OCLC several years ago demonstrated that only
|about 18% of
|> OCLC's catalog would be enhanced by the use of
|FRBR--everything else was
|> an author's one and only work (which can't be strictly "FRBR-ized").
|
|I think this is a bit misleading; FRBR is a model that extends way
|beyond the limitations of the single-book paradigm. In fact, there
|even is strong models to support author [subjects] - collection item
|[subjects], and so forth, which are fantastic coathangers to hang
|*other* types of non-bibliographic info on.

But that's all part of what IFLA's FRBR Review Group refers to as FRBR's
"bibliographic universe".  FRBR grew out of a study by the cataloging
community of how bibliographic records can better meet user needs (find,
identify, select, and access).  I'm by no means a FRBR expert--many
others are.  I'm only sharing what little I know in response to a
seemingly wide range of understandings here of what FRBR is.  I'm
familiar with the cataloging applications of FRBR, but I depend on the
"official" IFLA documents
<http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/wgfrbr/wgfrbr.htm>, LC info
<http://www.loc.gov/cds/FRBR.html> and
<http://www.loc.gov/marc/marc-functional-analysis/>, and OCLC research
(Continue reading)

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Alexander Johannesen | 2 Nov 2006 02:06
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Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

On 11/2/06, Hahn, Harvey <hhahn <at> ahml.info> wrote:
> IFLA's FRBR Review Group's FAQ about FRBR states: "... not every kind of
> document needs 'full FRBR treatment'. Many works are available in only
> one version and are issued only once in only one format: the FRBR tree
> structure would not prove very useful in such cases, and would result on
> the contrary in much redundancy. The whole range of documents from
> Hamlet to self-published holidays recollections represents a continuum
> from maximal helpfulness of FRBR to no helpfulness at all."  This is
> what my original statement referred to.

Yup, and I still think it is terribly misguided to tell people that we
shouldn't try to hack at the full potential of the model. We've been
playing with FRBR a lot lately, not to limit bibliographic models, but
to open the data up to any kind of relevant information, and in such a
framework we want everything to pass through the same scrutiny; it
tests both the applicabiliy of FRBR as well as the external models we
want to join it with.

The way I see it, there's mainly two ways of doing FRBR; merge stuff
together to create an FRBR'ed amalgamated bibrecord, or create a meta
layer above the raw data based on the FRBR model. Most people tend to
do the former, and I think that's a grave mistake. (Which I might
write more on later)

> |What I find amazing in this whole shebang is that FRBR was finalised
> |in 1997. That's nine years ago!
>
> Yes, but remember that the process started at the Stockholm Seminar on
> Bibliographic Records in 1990, seven years before that!
(Continue reading)

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William Denton | 2 Nov 2006 04:13
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Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

On 1 November 2006, Hahn, Harvey wrote:

> I've been following the FRBR thread here and thought I'd insert a bit
> more information about FRBR.  As FRBR is generally understood, it
> applies ONLY when there exists more than one instance/version of a
> work--FRBR is a way of *relating* various instances/versions of a work.

Just to follow up on what others have said about this: a book published in
only one edition will have a trivial (but valid) FRBR representation, yes,
as does the Mona Lisa.  Trivial if you consider it in isolation, that is,
but when you consider all the possible relationships, it gets more
interesting.  Da Vinci created the work, realized the expression, produced
the manifestation and the item, and now the Louvre owns the sole
manifestation and item.  But da Vinci made lots of other works, and the
Louvre owns scores of fascinating items.  That's worth noting.

That book with the sole manifestation is probably less interesting.
Still, the publisher produced other manifestations, which lead to other
works.  The items will be owned by people who own other items.

I've started a project called OpenFRBR (www.openfrbr.org), and one of its
rules is that the entities, the relationships, and the user tasks are all
equally important.  Nothing in a catalogue can really be considered in
isolation because the relationships to other people, organizations, works,
expressions, manifestations, and items are important; it's also important
to give users tools so they can find, identify, select, and obtain
whatever they want however they want.  I'm not saying that's easy, but
that's my goal.

Bill
(Continue reading)

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Conal Tuohy | 2 Nov 2006 04:35
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Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

William Denton wrote:

> Just to follow up on what others have said about this: a book
> published in
> only one edition will have a trivial (but valid) FRBR
> representation, yes,
> as does the Mona Lisa.  Trivial if you consider it in
> isolation, that is,
> but when you consider all the possible relationships, it gets more
> interesting.  Da Vinci created the work, realized the
> expression, produced
> the manifestation and the item, and now the Louvre owns the sole
> manifestation and item.

Oh really? :-)

I'm sure there's a huge number of other manifestations of Leonardo's
expression of the Mona Lisa, and there must be literally millions of
such items.
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William Denton | 2 Nov 2006 05:08
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Re: Cat-a-log(ue) and Defining our Entity

On 2 November 2006, Conal Tuohy wrote:

> I'm sure there's a huge number of other manifestations of Leonardo's
> expression of the Mona Lisa, and there must be literally millions of
> such items.

That was probably the most incorrect example I've ever used.  Everyone
just ignore it.  Thanks.

Bill
--
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : www.miskatonic.org : www.frbr.org
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